When I worked for Korean immigrant churches in Chicago for about four years, I had the chance to meet several people who wanted to talk about their long life stories. They looked lonely, and sometimes they repeated their stories, feeling catharsis as they conveyed their life meaning to other people through telling their stories. But when people repeated these same stories it was very boring, like when pastors always give the same kind of message through their sermons. Generally, people can find new meaning for their present and future life by telling their stories, but sometimes there will be cases when someone just repeats the stories without uncovering a new meaning, as when some pastors repeat the same message although they read and tell the stories of the bible many times.
Moreover, people are connected to each other by telling and sharing stories. Repeating the stories doesn’t offer opportunities to listen and respond to someone else’s stories. These kinds of stories are isolated. For example, there were conflicts in the church I worked for. I observed that the isolation of people’s stories might be contributing to the tension, and it might have become one of the causes of conflicts between church members. I saw that several people repeated their opinions without trying to listen and understand what others said in a meeting. It looked like their stories were imprisoned. I wondered why they could not find spiritual meaning in their life stories although they had much knowledge of the Bible. I soon realized that these immigrants needed a new way to tell their stories in order to reconstruct the meaning of their lives. I felt occasionally that they desperately wanted to tell their stories in such a way that they could discover the meaning of life from them.
Korean Christians give pastors special authority to teach and advise their congregations. Pastors help them to read and study the Bible alone and with a group, as well as preach sermons. I had many chances to teach the Bible, to lead Bible study groups, and to preach sermons. However, I realized that the two congregations I served wanted to hear about their own stories in relation to biblical narratives and how to live as Christians, and that they were seeking people with whom to share their stories safely. The Bible tells us that God loves to tell his/her own stories but also loves to hear our stories. I found that counselors and practical theologians with narrative approaches have profound insights that I might draw on to generate a narrative place where people might share their stories and connect in a deeper way with the Bible.
